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Friday, 30 May 2014

I promised a teaser each week leading up to the release date - so here is the next one.

Don't forget, Chasing Freedom will be on sale on the 15th of June. A date that ended up being far more significant than I had originally realised - but more on that another time. For now - here is a little snippet to hopefully spark your curiosity.

Chase woke with a groan of pain. Every part
of his body ached. Even his hair hurt. He felt like he’d been used as
somebody’s punching bag, either that or he’d been tackled by a guy twice his
weight. The latter seemed more likely. He lay for a moment, eyes scrunched
closed against the sunlight, trying to remember taking any big hits at practice
the night before.

Slowly he became aware that something wasn’t
right. It wasn’t his soft bed under him, but what felt like damp grass. And how
could the sun be shining on him? His dorm room faced west.

Vague memories of the previous night flooded
back and he bolted upright. The memories were disjointed and confusing, but
most of all he remembered the pain. The feeling of his entire body twisting and
convulsing. The agony as his hands became paws, as his ears moved up the side
of his head, and as his teeth lengthened into inch long fangs.

Chase took deep breaths, shuddering at the
memory. It had to have been a dream. Right? He hadn’t really turned into some
kind of animal.

He got shakily to his feet and froze. He was
in the middle of a forest. And he was naked. Completely, and utterly, naked.

Taking a second, calmer look around he
realised it wasn’t a forest, but the woodland on the edge of the Common in his
home town. It lay nearly twenty miles from his school. He couldn’t remember
getting there.

On the plus side, it did mean home was
nearby, and clothes. He really, really wanted some clothes.

He edged towards the border of the woodland,
peering out between the trees. It was very early morning, not long past dawn
if he could judge. There was no one in sight.

Closing his eyes he took another deep breath
and set off at a run.

It took him fifteen excruciating minutes to
get home. He used the back alleys, and cut across back gardens, but he was
still fairly sure old Mrs Jenkins at number sixteen saw him as he leapt her
garden wall and onto his mother’ flowerbeds.

His mum and dad were almost certainly still
asleep, but a spare key lived in the bottom of the flower pot by the back door.
He’d told his mum a thousand times it was too dangerous leaving it there, but
for once he was glad she had ignored him.

The door creaked a little as he pushed it
open, but he made it to the bathroom without waking either of his parents.

Two minutes later Chase stood under the
shower, scalding water beating down on his back. Muddy water swirled away from
his feet and down the drain. The shower wasn’t helping, even when he scrubbed
himself again and again, he still felt somehow unclean. His nails were caked
with mud, and more worryingly blood. He racked his brain, trying to think where
the blood had come from. Was it his own? A vague memory of a man’s terrified
face suggested it wasn’t. Bile rose in his throat. Had he attacked someone?
Killed them? Why couldn’t he remember?

Friday, 23 May 2014

As I did with The Last Knight, I have decided to give everyone a little teaser for Chasing Freedom every weekend leading up to release on the 15th June.

Today I'm going to start in the most logical place - the beginning.

So without further ado, the very opening scene (a scene first drafted about 9 years ago!) of Chasing Freedom.

Get ready to meet Chase Finn!

He was going to
die. His heart knew it, hammering away as though trying to make every last beat
count. He crouched, panting for breath, fingers clutching the stitch in his side.
Coppery, thick blood trickled into his mouth from a gash on his lip, and he
shivered uncontrollably in the cold, foggy night. He was trapped. Instinct
screamed at him to fight, but logic overruled it. Fight and he would die. Hide
and he might just survive the night. The hunt was over, but Chase Finn wasn’t
ready to die just yet.

Rain dripped
down the back of his collar from a broken drainpipe and he shivered more
violently. He hadn’t slept in two days and he couldn’t remember the last time
he’d eaten. There hadn’t been time. All he could do was run. Run, hide, and
pray they never found him.

He wedged
himself further down between the dustbin and the wall. The space was too small for
his tall frame; his shoulders scraped against the brickwork and his right calf
muscle began to cramp. He tried to ignore it and squinted through the rain.

He scanned his
surroundings, looking for an escape route he knew didn’t exist. There wasn’t
much to see; illumination from the streetlight reached less than a foot into
the alleyway. The rest remained in darkness. Chase could only just make out the
stack of crates a little further down, and rubbish spilt across the ground from
an overturned dustbin.

Sucking in a
breath the cool air stung his throat and lungs. For a moment he felt calmer - until
he heard the sound of slow, steady footsteps approaching the alley.

“He came down here.”

Chase risked a
glance from behind the bin. Two men stood silhouetted against the orange glow
of the streetlight. One kept watch out towards the cars by the kerb; the other
peered into the alleyway.

“Maybe he did,
maybe he didn’t, but I’m not going down there to look. They’re vicious when
they’re cornered.” The smaller of the two men looked away from the street and
then back again, shifting uncomfortably.

Chase watched
them, his heart in his mouth. Keep going,
you bastards.

“You wanna get
paid?” The taller man edged into the alley and Chase tensed. “We got a bounty.
We don’t bring him in, we get no money.” He took another two steps, but didn’t seem
to want to go further without backup.

The smaller man
clenched his fists at his sides then reached into his jacket. Light glinted on
the metal of a gun as he followed his companion into the alley. They edged
forward, watching every shadow for movement.

Taking a deep
breath, Chase tried to stop the wild beating of his heart, irrationally afraid
it would give him away. There was nowhere left to run. Logic be damned, fighting
was the only choice he had.

He waited, a low
growl reverberating in his throat, until they were only a few feet away before
springing. Chase tackled the larger man full in the chest, sending him reeling
backwards into the brick wall. They both fell, but Chase rolled onto his knees
and scrambled upright. The man was still struggling to his feet as Chase
whirled around – only to find himself face-to-face with the barrel of a gun. Before
he could react the butt of the weapon smashed into his temple. Lights exploded
behind his eyes and he staggered backwards.

“Easy now, mate,”
the smaller man murmured as Chase regained his footing and lunged back towards
him. “I don’t want to hurt you. I get more if I take you in unharmed.”

Chase took
another step forward and snarled.

Sighing, the man
raised his weapon again; this time pointed at Chase’s chest, and pulled the
trigger.

Sunday, 18 May 2014

It's just under a month until Chasing Freedom is released, and I'd really like to organise a blog tour for the week of its launch.

I have a couple of blogs already signed up - but I would like a few more if possible.

I'll have eARCs available for anyone wanting to do a review - but I am also hoping to do some more fun things like Q & A's with the characters (or with me!), 10 Things You Didn't Know About Chase Finn - that kind of thing.

If you're interested in being a part in the blog tour just leave a comment below in the following format:

Name:
Link to Blog:
Preference for day of the week (if you have one):
Type of Post (i.e review, interview etc):
Contact Details:

Everyone taking part will still get a free eARC even if they're not doing a review.

Also hoping to do a giveaway of ebook copies of both of my books.

As a side note, big love and many thanks to everyone who checked out the cover reveal for Chasing Freedom, spread the word on twitter and added it on goodreads.

Friday, 16 May 2014

So the day has come. It's one month now until I release my second novel - CHASING FREEDOM - and I can now share the cover and back cover blurb with you all.

To tell you just a little about this book - I actually first started writing it about 9 years ago. Long before the werewolf and vampire craze took over. I put it aside for a long time, always swearing I would go back to it one day.

That day has finally come!

So without further ado - here is the cover of CHASING FREEDOM!

I'm incredibly pleased with it - and I hope everyone likes it too!

As for the book itself - here's the blurb:

Chase Finn is being hunted, and if he ever stops
running he’s going to end up dead.

It doesn’t matter that he’s only seventeen. It
doesn’t matter that just a few weeks ago he was a normal teenager. All that
matters is that he is a threat, and the Agents tracking him will stop at
nothing to see him neutralised.

With the line between friends and enemies blurring,
Chase discovers he is just a pawn in the middle of a war that’s lasted for
centuries, but he isn’t going to let himself be used any longer.

Soon both sides of the war are going to learn that
the most important thing about Chase Finn isn’t that he’s a werewolf, it’s that
he’ll sacrifice everything, even his own freedom, for the people he loves.

Wednesday, 14 May 2014

It’s strange really. I think that a part of me still
believes I’m going to wake up one morning and it will have been a dream. It
doesn’t seem real.

The truth is, I forget sometimes. It’s not that I don’t miss
you, but for nearly three years now I’ve lived on the other side of the world.
You weren’t a part of my day-to-day life. I didn’t see you every day, or speak
to you all the time. So it’s easy to forget. It’s easy to think that you are
just ‘over there’ doing your thing and one day soon I’ll pick up the phone and
speak to you and fill you in on my life.

And in a way it’s great, because I don’t have to be sad all
the time. I don’t have to miss you constantly. I can pretend – just for a
little while – that nothing has changed.

Then it will hit me all of a sudden. I’ll remember that you’re
not just a phone call away anymore. I’ll remember that hearing your voice is
something I won’t get to do anymore.

The trouble is, at that moment it’s like losing you all over
again. All the pain, all the sadness come rushing back in one massive wave.

And I’m left wondering if those days of ‘pretend’ are worth
the days when I remember all over again?

I know they say that grief is a process and something you
just have to work through, but I’m not sure I’m ever going to get used to
remembering that you’re not around anymore. It feels like I’m never going to be
able to think about losing you without the tears, and the ache that makes it
hard to breathe.

Yet on the other hand, perversely, remembering you makes me
happy too. And it’s the silly things. Like doing trivia night at the local bar
and suddenly thinking about you being Quiz Master in Abu Dhabi. ‘Rule #1 – the quiz
master is always right. Rule #2- in the
event the quiz master is wrong, refer to rule #1’. Or eating Easter Eggs and
remembering how you could always manage to make yours last for weeks longer
than the rest of us, and when ours ran out you would be quietly smug about it.

So I’m trying not to forget you. I’m trying not to simply
block you from my mind just to make it easier. I try and talk about you as much
as I can. In fact, I think I’m turning into you – I talk way too much! But three
months feels like forever and yet no time at all.

You may no longer be just a phone call away, but you will always,
always be just a thought away.

Sunday, 11 May 2014

This will just be a short post, but I have made a decision
that I’m excited to share with everyone.

Whilst a lot of people know I’ve been working on the sequel
to The Last Knight, I also do have other books I have been working on.

One of which is an older book (I wrote it before The Last
Knight) that I have recently revisited. It’s a book I love and would love for
other people to read.

So I have made the decision to go ahead and publish it.

I’m hoping to have it on the virtual shelf by the beginning of
June.

Chasing Freedom is a YA Urban Fantasy set in London. It was
a top-five pick on Inkpop (a kind of virtual slush pile run by Harper Collins
and a brilliant website that created a great community for writers before it shut down) a few years
ago and landed on the desk of a Harper Collins editor. They didn’t pick it up
for publishing, but they did give me some amazing feedback and positive
comments. I’m really excited about publishing this book because there were a
lot of people who really loved it when it was back on Inkpop.

So get ready to meet Chase Finn and the rest of the gang at
West Haven, and enter a world of supernaturals, government conspiracies and a
centuries-old war.

CHASING FREEDOM – Coming June 2014

(For anyone who’s worried – The sequel to The Last Knight is
still coming too! Autumn 2014!)